Tiger does not owe you (nor me) an apology of any sort

I’m in the locker room at my gym a couple of days ago and the pundit on the Stupid Box has cranked his Righteousometer to 11. “Tiger needs to apologize!”, “Tiger should stop playing for 6 months and get his life together”, “Tiger will lose his endorsements and his career is possibly over.”

These are just a few things i heard that day and since then i’ve heard far more and far worse.

Not trying to be crass here but to all you self appointed moralists, go help yourself to a large cup of Shut the Fuck Up.
But let’s be clear about this- Tiger Woods is not a role model. He’s not a priest, doling out morality on life, love, marriage (one does not preclude nor exclude the other) and family then going and screwing as many boys or girls as he can. He’s not like Mark Sanford (Governor, R-South Carolina) who has spent his career spewing morality as a politician then was forced to reveal that not only had he had an affair, but that he spent taxpayers money to fly to another continent so he could get laid without telling anyone that he was leaving. Eventually i’ll get around to discussing the hypocrisy of Sanford, Ted Haggard and other white wing moralists, but not today.

Let’s be serious- if you think that politicians are role models, if you think that athletes or golfers or car drivers are role models, that’s YOUR moral failing. Read that again, “That’s YOUR moral failing.” Asking a politician for moral guidance, expecting the lives of celebrities and artists to be beacons of morality upon which to guide your life is the same as asking a whore for sincerity. In fact, asking a whore for sincerity is more honest. I expect people to be ethical no matter what they do- priest, politician or whore. But when it comes to their private lives, well, it’s called “private” for a reason. If Tiger went and fucked a thousand women, what business is it of mine? What business is it of yours? Hint: none.

If you decided that athletes, golfers, car drivers or even musicians are worth looking up to, it’s probably okay to do so as long as you’re looking to them for the qualities that make them good at their craft. It can be the tenacity and persistence of Serena Williams, the puck handling of Sergei Zubov, the innovations of Thelonious Monk or hell, if you want to lower your standards to the level of some Cheetos eating, Mountain Dew swilling, Diet Coors drinking asshole, you can admire how well some goddamned NASCAR driver can take left turns all afternoon long.

But at no point does it make any sense to look at these people and in the example of American football, say, “Wow. He wears those tight pants really well and jumps and piles on all those men every Sunday afternoon. I’d like my son to look up to him as a beacon of masculinity and morality.”

And by the same token Tiger Woods is not here for you to look up to nor are any of us worthy or have any right to expect any soft of an apology from him. But this overall bizarre belief that people have, that just because we see someone on the television, they owe us a debt that allows us to intrude into, observe and judge their private lives. I’ll go so far to say that anyone that indulges that whim is not only vapid, but has no content to their character. The only exception is when people pass themselves off as moralists, such as Ted Haggard. If you don’t know who that is, Ted sold himself as an upright family guy who bellowed “family values” and had a particular fervor for denouncing homosexuality. What Ted neglected to tell us is that he is gay and that he was a prolific meth user.

But if you can’t see the difference between a moralist like Ted Haggard and the private affairs of Tiger Woods, then there’s nothing i can say here that would make any sense to you.

It saddens and sickens me to see the continuing decline in entertainment. Yes, tabloid rags have always been around and gossip will always be a component of the weak minded and profoundly incurious. That’s just the way it is. The problem i have, and hopefully that you have, is seeing people scream from their sanctimonious ivory tower that Tiger Woods owes any of us an apology for what he’s done in his private life.